Russell Brand Sentenced to 10½ Years as Survivor Describes Trauma

Mr. Justice Bennathan sentenced Brand on Monday, November 9, after a jury found him guilty the previous Thursday of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault. The offenses took place between 2004 and 2009. The Metropolitan Police said the 51-year-old will remain on the sex offenders’ register for life. The four-week trial ended with Brand acquitted of two other rape charges and attempted indecent assault.

At the hearing, defense lawyer Ian Winter KC addressed a 2004 assault in a Soho bar, where Brand groped a woman’s breasts. He disputed that her intoxication made her particularly vulnerable, saying there was no evidence Brand knew she was tipsy, and called the assault a “very, very short incident.”

Winter also described the 2009 rape of a 21-year-old woman at Brand’s Hampstead home. He said the encounter began consensually and argued Brand’s sentence should reflect a “short, momentary total failure to respect her consent in two areas.” He also linked Brand’s insistence that the woman shower and brush her teeth before the attack to his history with alcohol. Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones KC rejected that framing, describing his treatment of the woman as “degradation” and “humiliation.”

The woman said she felt anxious, humiliated and overwhelmed after the attack, struggled to eat and sleep, and had to take time away from work. She returned to live with her parents because she did not feel safe or able to cope alone. Sleep difficulties have continued, she said, and she still carries the trauma every day.

Days before sentencing, Winter confronted Sunday Times reporter Rosamund Urwin outside the court after the verdict, according to the Daily Mail. After Urwin said she was pleased justice had been done, Winter replied, “Well, it wasn’t. You f-cked it. Congratulations.” He later reported himself to his professional regulator.